If you haven't seen it yet, I urge everyone to check out the Twitter hashtag WhyIStayed, as well as the hashtag WhyILeft. They do an excellent, searing, and intensely emotional job of showing why the question of "Why did s/he stay?" is the wrong question to ask. It places the burden on the victim, as if it's the victim's responsibility to ensure his or her abuser doesn't abuse.

In general, I think women are often socialized to view maintaining relationships as their responsibility. Popular culture is awash with "bad boy" types who need only the love of a good woman to repair all their flaws. Given this, is it that surprising that women stay in bad relationships because they think they're supposed to be able to fix them?

Relationship violence isn't perpetrated only by men upon women, though, and that's an important point. Men are the victims of relationship violence too, as are members of the LGBTQ community. Abusers come from every race, every economic bracket, every sort of upbringing. To pretend otherwise is to minimize the seriousness of the problem.

Statistically speaking, though, women are the most common victims of relationship violence. One in four women will experience relationship violence in their lifetime, and 85% of all victims are women. (source)

For people who've never been victims and who are struggling to understand this problem, I'd suggest a simple exercise. Think back to a relationship that went wrong, a relationship that meant the world to you, the ending of which broke your heart. Now ask yourself what you would have done to preserve that relationship. Leaving someone you love is one of the hardest things a person can do, even if it is for your own protection.

Being the victim of abuse is frightening, isolating, and embarrassing. Victims often feel that the abuse is partially their fault, and this isn't a coincidence. Part of the cycle of abuse involves the abuser convincing the victim that s/he provoked it. Often, people in a violent relationship don't even realize that it's a violent relationship. Sometimes something happens that makes it crystal clear to them that they need to get out. You can look at the hashtags I linked above to better understand what I mean by this. Sometimes they never figure it out, and it costs them their lives, their peace of mind, their dignity.

The thought of doing something that could be viewed as opportunistic makes me feel a strong sense of revulsion. I don't want to sound like I'm taking advantage of a situation to try to sell some copies of my book. That's not my purpose at all. What I do want to do is help clarify that abuse comes in more than one form and that the toll is wrecks on the victim's psyche is severe and long-lasting, which is what drove me to write a book about it.

I wrote Starstruck not because I wanted to write a straight-up romance, but because I wanted to portray a victim's struggle to overcome her abuse and to find a healthy romantic relationship. More specifically, I wanted to write about the struggles of a victim of psychological violence rather than physical violence. People know what physical abuse looks like, but they don't always know what psychological abuse looks like. Both forms of violence are extremely serious, and both forms have devastating effects on their victims, some that lead to lifelong physical and/or psychological problems.

My biggest goal with the book was to help people understand what it feels like to be in that situation, and how complex and difficult it is. I wanted people to understand that walking away isn't as easy as it sounds. Many things complicate a person's ability to leave a violent relationship, not least of which are things like financial dependence or having had a child with their abuser. Then there's the personal humiliation victims may feel, the overwhelming sense of failure, and the mourning for the relationship the victim thought s/he was supposed to have with the abuser.

For further information, I'd recommend listening to the conversation on the subject from NPR's On Point. Beverly Gooden, the woman who started the Twitter hashtag, is one of the contributors, and she has a lot of valuable, insightful things to say. The podcast isn't available yet, but it should be up on the page soon.

Most importantly, if you are a victim of abuse, you don't deserve it. I urge you to reach out to someone, whether it's a family member, a friend, or a hotline. No one deserves abuse. Everyone deserves a safe, loving, healthy relationship.

If you live in the U.S. and are a victim of abuse who needs help, or if you want to help someone you fear is being abused, here are a few resources you can reach out to:

Behold! I've now entered one of those very stressful periods of life: I've released a new book!

All of my books take a lot out of me, but this book was a particular source of stress for a couple of reasons.

For one, writing about recovering from an abusive relationship isn't a picnic. It's a very important topic to me, and I struggled to capture both the hopeless, dark feeling of having to recover from a traumatic event while also portraying the light and hopefulness of coming out on the other side and realizing that life can and should be better. Hopefully I did the subject justice.

The second source of my stress was tackling the new adult genre, but it's one I was eager to explore because I'm excited about its potential. A person's twenties are a pivotal time in life, when the buffer zone begins to disappear, and you have to figure out how to define your version of adulthood.

While there are some truly amazing NA books out there, I've been a little disappointed by the lack of variety. I'd love to see more NA spec fic, as well as NA mysteries and thrillers, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love a good romance, but I'd also love to see NA expand into other subgenres.

Um, but isn't my book a romance? Yes, it is, but it's a little different from many of the NA romances I've read. If you're looking for a read that will steam up your Kindle, Starstruck is probably not the book for you. But if you're looking for a story about how two people overcome obstacles while learning to give love a chance, then Starstruck is for you.

To give you a taste of what to expect, check out my 6-chapter sneak peek.

Are you a blogger interested in reviewing the book? My book is listed on NetGalley, or you can request it from my ARC request page.

Starstruck is available on Amazon for purchase or borrow, if you're a Prime Member, and you can add it to your to-read shelf on Goodreads.

I'm taking a deep breath and plunging into a discussion I've been a little wary of: why I'm not a fan of the bad boy/girl trope. As with everything, we're all different and we all like different things. The opinion I'm expressing here is my own, and it's one that colors the way I write characters, particularly romantic leads.
Bad boys and girls in pop culture tend to be portrayed as very sexy, that dangerous edge making them oh-so-appealing. But as anyone who's had to recover from a relationship with a bad boy/girl knows, being with someone who's physically abusive, manipulative, a pathological liar, or an emotional abuser--or any combination of these things--is no laughing matter. An unhealthy relationship can destroy a person's sense of self and have lasting effects on their mental and physical health. It can leave devastating scars that may require years of therapy to overcome. And the effects reach beyond the two people who form the couple. Dating violence can also destroy the victim's relationship with family and friends, leaving the victim isolated and loved ones to deal with the emotional impact of the loss of that relationship.

Now, I'm not saying that every fictional relationship has to be squeaky clean for me to approve. I also happen to be a very big fan of redemption stories, as I like to think it's possible for people to change and own up to the bad things they've done in the past, manifesting a sincere desire to do better and be better. However, if I'm reading a book or watching a movie or TV show, and the supposedly highly desirable love interest insults their dating partner, belittles them, or treats them horribly, it will turn me off instantly. And it goes without saying that if either partner is physically abusive toward the other, that's unacceptable. While I don't want to downplay the impact of physical abuse, I feel like emotional abuse is a much more hidden topic, one people often tend to dismiss as not being all that serious. Yes, we all do and say nasty things in the heat of the moment, but there's a difference between a few careless words and a long campaign of emotional abuse.

My most problematic love interest character is Lysander/Edward, the beast in The Eye of the Beholder. He's a redemption character, and I didn't want to soften his bad side. I wanted him to be a terrible person who slowly realizes how terrible he is and honestly repents of it. I'll come right out and admit I had trouble with writing him at times, particularly when I started to delve into the romantic side of his relationship with Mira. I was walking a tightrope, and I only hope I did it with at least some success.

Aside from him, my other love interest characters are of the nice guy variety, and one of the things that disturbs me most is when people think nice characters are unrealistic. I think that says a lot about our culture, that so many people honestly believe niceness is a rare and exotic quality. I personally reject this view because I happen to be married to a man who's a lot like some of the characters in my books. He respects me, he is my partner and treats me like one, and he's an active participant in my home life who does dishes, folds laundry, and spends time with the kids. Sure, we disagree and even fight sometimes, but we fight fair. He's been my biggest cheerleader almost since the day he came into my life, and it's really because of him that I took the leap and published my books, because he believes so strongly in me and wanted to see me follow my dreams. That is what a relationship should look like.

I feel strongly about this issue because of statistics like these, from loveisrespect.org:

• "One in three adolescents in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence."
  
• "One quarter of high school girls have been victims of physical or sexual abuse."

And this from the World Health Organization:

• "Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime."

And this from LAMBDA:

• "The rates of domestic violence in same-gender relationships is roughly the same as domestic violence against heterosexual women (25%).  As in opposite-gendered couples, the problem is likely underreported."

When popular culture portrays relationship violence as being sexy and desirable, it contributes to the noramlization of dating violence. No one should think that if their boyfriend is a habitual jerk, that's okay, as long as he pretends to be sorry. No one should believe that the woman of their dreams will walk all over them and treat them like an object, and that they should repress their hurt and their insecurities from her because she can't be bothered with them. That's not what real love looks like, and society does no one any service by pretending that it does look that way. Love is complicated and difficult, but at its heart a real, healthy, loving relationship means being in a partnership with someone who brings out the best in us, who listens to our hopes, fears, and dreams. Someone who offers an encouraging word and a shoulder to cry on, someone who doesn't hit below the belt because, at all times, he or she holds our feelings sacred.

So it probably goes without saying that there will be no sexy bad boys or girls in my books, unless I'm using them to illustrate a point, as I have in Starstruck. There will be flawed characters who do bad things and inflict pain on one another, but they will own up to that and grow as people--or they won't, which will clearly illustrate their villainy.

My hope is that more people will discuss topics like these until those statistics I quoted above shrink and shrink until they almost disappear.